“Our problems lie in how we see ourselves. We’ve bought into so much without thinking.”

~ Ali Karjoo- Ravary, a friend I made at the Chautauqua Institute

More is better and we can certainly use more power when it comes to overcoming race. So much of what we hear and see and say suggests that we are powerless against the will and words of race. More is said of race’s power over us but I am here to remind you that you have a greater power within you that overcomes the flesh, even race: “Greater is he who is in me than (race) that is in the world (First John 4.4).

So, here are ten more declarations that you can make in your mind or perhaps, from your mouth. Race has long told you who you are or what you are, where you belong and who belongs to you. I think it’s time to put race in its place: outside of our identity. Now, repeat after me:

1. As Christians, there is no “us” and “them.” We are all God’s children.

2. To be described racially doesn’t even scratch the surface of who we are as human beings.

3. Race is a label not your name. Peel it off and introduce yourself.

4. God spoke me into existence; race could never say me any better.

5. Break the rules of race. Erase the color line. It’s written in pencil not in stone.

6. A belief in race is the worship of creatures not the Creator. It is faith in our flesh not in God.

7. I am faithful to the cross not to the social coloring of skin.

8. God does not care what your ‘race’ has done. No, God saves us because of what Christ has done.

9. God does not come in socially constructed races.

10. A racial identity is one rooted in and based on hatred: hatred of self, the ‘other’ or both. Race is not the answer to our questions concerning identity but the problem.